📣📣📣 Hi Everyone! I'm accepting PhD students for the Fall 2026 cycle! Our lab topics include the developmental origins and elaboration of moral cognition/prosocial behavior, persistence, and optimism. More info below!!

Lazarus et al. (2025): A simple act with a lasting impact: Holding babies skin-to-skin in the NICU helped support their development and reduced differences linked to family income. Early touch can be a powerful way to promote equity from the very start #infancypapers doi.org/10.1111/infa...

New paper! Here (in Nature Communications) we (Ale Geraci, Luca Surian, Lucia Gabriella Tina, & I; work led/run by Ale) show that 5-day-old newborns selectively attend to two distinct forms of prosocial over antisocial action: approaching versus avoiding and helping versus hindering. rdcu.be/evorW

I'm hiring a full-time #labmanager for my new Lab for Infant Learning and Cognition (LILAC) at UCSB! The start date is flexible, but could be as early as August 1, 2025. Application review begins July 17th and will continue until the position is filled 👶🪴 recruit.ap.ucsb.edu/JPF02992 #academicjobs

🚨 Postdoc Opportunity!!! The Toronto Early Cognition Lab (@UofT) is hiring a postdoc to study early optimism in infants & young children. Work w/ multi-method approach, amazing undergrads & grads. Start: Fall 2025 or later. Details: [email protected] RTs appreciated 💫

Wow this is cool!!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PnO... Check out this 1 min clip where I describe why it's impossible for AI to 'understand' language. based on @theconversation.com article lnkd.in/gh97_cbW #Neuroscience @brocku.ca

Check out my new article in The Conversation Canada, based on my research in #Neuroscience at @brocku.ca theconversation.com/a-neuroscien...

Just had the chance to present on an @infantstudies.bsky.social panel about inexpensive methods for data collection with children - if you're curious about how Children Helping Science works/the kinds of studies you can run, this slide deck is a good place to start! docs.google.com/presentation...

My ICIS blog post about some of our lab's recent work: infantstudies.org/to-try-or-no...

#SRCD2025 come check out the Toronto Early Cognition Lab (@jessicas.bsky.social)! @elainewang.bsky.social will also be presenting work with @julia-a-leonard.bsky.social that we got to collaborate on :)

Breaking News: Canada’s Liberal Party is projected to win, electing Mark Carney, who ran on an anti-Trump platform, as prime minister. nyti.ms/4308UmS

Canadian Academics!: I'm seeing that CAUT just issued a travel advisory warning against non-essential travel to the US. I'm curious to know how folks are feeling about this and whether it will affect plans to attend upcoming conferences? www.thestar.com/news/canada/...

Research led by Psychology PhD candidate @radovanovic.bsky.social & Prof. @jessicas.bsky.social is investigating how people-pleasing socialization influences how children solve problems. 💡 www.psych.utoronto.ca/news/people-...

One of the wildest polling-related charts I've seen in my lifetime. via @338canada.bsky.social:

I am so sick of this bullshit. Canada outperforms the US on every wellbeing indicator I can think of. #ViveLeCanada

“There are, as Donald Trump and Don Corleone might put it, two ways of doing this: the easy way and the hard way,” writes @eliotacohen.bsky.social. When it comes to making Canada the 51st state, neither is advisable: theatln.tc/6oAICykE

Nice write up from U of T, about a study we published in the fall led by the AMAZING @radovanovic.bsky.social . Take a listen to her podcast interview too. www.artsci.utoronto.ca/news/people-...

Time to re-share this article, which lays out the many similarities in how Trump talks about Canada and how Putin talks about Ukraine. It's getting worse by the day. www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

THIS IS HUGE! Researchers at Stanford University have developed a dual-antibody treatment that remains effective against ALL SARS-CoV-2 variants by targeting a less-mutable part of the virus. This breakthrough could lead to longer-lasting therapies that OUTPACE viral evolution. 🧪🧵⬇️

"Long may the maple leaf fly above a sovereign and unbowed north" www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

Looking for a post-doc? Apply for the Western Postdoctoral Fellowship Program at Western University @westernu.bsky.social in Canada🇨🇦. Comes with a competitive salary and a research stipend: www.uwo.ca/research/fun...

Boycott everything Elon: Tesla, Neuralink, X, etc! betakit.com/its-done-its...

Ok, Canadians. You know what to do. Tighten our belts. Strengthen our resolve. Show our unity. Demonstrate our national pride. Support our real allies. Put Canada first forever and always.

Stand up for Science, March 7

Join us in supporting NIH and NSF in local papers across the country!

We're just a few days away from this year's Morality Preconference!! Don't miss it! #SPSP2025

BREAKING On Monday, Popular Information broke the news that the NIH had frozen virtually all grant funding in violation of 2 federal court orders On Wednesday, NIH leadership distributed a memo, acknowledging that its funding freeze was illegal and directing staff to resume issuing grants.

Congratulations to the 2025 APS Spence Award Recipients! 🎉 #AcademicSky #Psychology @drjuandeltoro.bsky.social @chazfirestone.bsky.social @ashleylwatts.bsky.social @minuekim.bsky.social @julia-a-leonard.bsky.social @markthornton.bsky.social @gemmasharpe.bsky.social

JOIN CANADA

JUST IN: A federal judge in Massachusetts has blocked the Trump administration's rate change to NIH grants. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Get in dorks, we're going protesting! STAND UP FOR SCIENCE WITH US ON MARCH 7TH, 2025 WASHINGTON DC AND EVERY STATE CAPITOL Because science is for everyone! Find us at standupforscience2025.org #standupforscience2025 #scienceforall #sciencenotsilence

BREAKING: 22 states sue NIH over Trump administration's new 15% cap on overhead for federal research grants. Suit filed federal court in Boston contends lifesaving research 'will grind to a halt' under the policy. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

I am hiring a lab manager to start ~ July 1st. sjobs.brassring.com/TGnewUI/Sear...

This comment on the NYT site sounds spot-on, and it is why I disagree with my colleagues who say: "We'll know more in a few weeks, let's wait and see how things shake down before we take any action.": "As someone who grew up under an authoritarian regime, I can offer one crucial piece of advice: ...

It's not "in protest" It's economic self-defence www.thetravel.com/us-travel-as...

Long, thoughtful piece on Trump’s thoughtless attack on American universities by the eminent scientist Richard Aslin. dickaslin.substack.com/p/are-we-pay...

Good blog post on describing why the NIH drop in IDC would have such negative effects. It is clear, non-technical and has things that can be done by everyone www.kateringland.com/the-hidden-b...

The new NIH policy for indirect costs going forward is capped at 15%. This is forever going to alter the science ecosystem, upending and destroying a number of programs at universities across the country. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

Dick Aslin, National Academy member and courageous leader in science, has launched a new Substack. His first post tackles the alarming shift from an administrative to autocratic state: ‘Congress itself has been rendered irrelevant.’ Don’t miss it: open.substack.com/pub/dickasli...

Private universities are focusing all their efforts on quietly lobbying Trump to avoid taxes on their endowments, but are silent on the big issues. Their silence is a problem because it leaves us without powerful advocates at a time when science is under attack. We need to tell leaders to stand up.

Canada, I'm looking at YOU!

Made in Canada Grocery Store Guide. madeinca.ca/grocery-stor... #cdnpoli #peipoli

Great resource to help Canadians buy goods made in Canada! madeinca.ca?fbclid=IwY2x...

#AcademicSky An important statement from the American Association of University Professors @aaup.bsky.social on "Against Anticipatory Obedience." Please read. www.aaup.org/report/again...

The Canadian public and especially political class should understand the US President is explicitly declaring economic war on Canada with the goal of ruining & then annexing it. This is not merely a tariff war and the political class shouldn’t treat it as merely that: Deal with the intent to annex.

Canadians will decide Canada’s future and place in the world. Sign the pledge for Canada: engagement-canada-pledge.ca

Remember the Cass Report, which supposedly "followed the science" on trans kids health? The huge York University epidemiology study on which it was based has finally been published, and it contradicts many of the report's conclusions. By @gidmk.bsky.social. gidmk.substack.com/p/gender-dys...

NYU infant consciousness conference, Feb 28-March 1. wonderful line-up: Tim Bayne @De_dicto Susan Carey @AnnaCiaunica @ghisdl @joel_frohlich @AlisonGopnik @SidKouider @LorinaNaci Yusuke Nakashima. Thank you Claudia Passos for the invite ! philevents.org/event/show/1...